Chapter 359: All Scripture-Fetchers Must Die!

Glancing twice at the Human-Faced Monkey's corpse, Tang Luo shook his head and continued upward.

All along the way Human-Faced Monkeys kept appearing to harass him; Tang Luo didn't make a move, and Xiaotian Dog swept her claws the whole way.

By the time he reached the halfway point up the mountain, the number of Human-Faced Monkeys had increased considerably, and among the various "zhi zhi" monkey cries were mixed human voices like "die."

Enough to make an ordinary person's whole body turn cold.

"They even have weapons now." Tang Luo looked at the latest Human-Faced Monkey corpse, a rust-stained short blade gripped in its claws.

Continuing upward, there should be more surprises.

Thinking it over, Tang Luo rubbed Xiaotian Dog's head, signaling she wasn't needed, and took out the Demon-Breaking Cold Ice Spear; a frigid chill radiated out.

He'd clear the path himself.

Come to think of it, ever since he got this spear, Tang Luo had had very few chances to use it.

When he first entered the God-Demon Game and obtained attack-type equipment, Tang Luo still used it fairly often; now that his strength had recovered quite a bit, he used it relatively less.

The main reason was that most equipment, for Tang Luo, didn't have the effect of "leveraging the weapon's advantage."

He'd never had the habit of using magic treasures either; more often he still faced enemies with a pair of bare palms.

That wasn't good; he'd have to use them more in the future.

Having equipment and magic treasures is actually a very convenient thing — for instance, right now, one spear thrust.

Not only did it pierce the Human-Faced Monkeys clean through, it also froze their corpses directly into ice blocks; a casual shake sent stone-hard shards flying in all directions, still able to smash into other Human-Faced Monkeys.

Nearing the summit, Tang Luo heard a rushing sound of water.

Emerging from the dense thicket into a clearing, the black night sky above, a waterfall roared down from the cliff before him, spray flying.

Ripples kept rising on the surface of the black deep pool.

"Zhi zhi!"

A great number of monkey shrieks came from all directions.

One Human-Faced Monkey after another emerged from the darkness, on the surrounding trees, surrounding Tang Luo in a ring, their eyes glowing with a faint red light.

Indicating their identity as ghosts.

Behind the waterfall, at the middle of the cliff face, there was indeed a large cave; the entrance was an irregular circle, only a dozen or so meters in diameter.

Along with the Human-Faced Monkeys' cries, an incomparably heavy breathing sound came from within the cave; even with the loud roar of the waterfall, it was still clearly audible.

Before long, a huge blurry white figure appeared at the cave mouth and leaped out.

It wasn't knocked into the pool by the waterfall's downward force; instead, the waterfall was cut off in that very instant.

Landing before Tang Luo, this was a gigantic white ape.

Its build was closer to a silverback gorilla, four limbs on the ground, nearly ten meters tall, its whole body covered in extremely dense fur.

Especially the white fur around the head, even denser than a male lion's mane, completely covering the entire face — only a pair of red-glowing eyes could be seen.

Behind it a tail stood straight up; the flesh at the tip had vanished, revealing a section of white bone, the final tail vertebra sharp like a spearhead.

The White Giant Ape stood before Tang Luo, its heavy breathing like muffled thunder rolling over.

The fur on its body surged strangely like waves, lacking the imagined ferocity of a giant beast.

Instead it carried a few degrees of stillness, but beneath this stillness lay endless danger.

Like dark clouds before a violent storm.

"Monkey God? Who named Flower-Fruit Mountain and Water Curtain Cave?" Tang Luo looked up at the White Giant Ape.

"Human, your courage is not small." The breathing stopped, and the Giant Ape spoke; its voice was instead ordinary, not particularly loud, enunciation clear.

"Hmm, do you know or not?" Tang Luo asked.

"Who are you, where do you come from?" The Giant Ape didn't answer, but asked back instead.

"This poor monk comes from the Eastern Land, heading to the Western Heaven to fetch scriptures..." Tang Luo paused, "Sorry, misspoke — now I'm protecting the scripture-fetcher—"

"Scripture-fetcher!"

Before the words fell, the White Giant Ape let out a deafening roar, "Scripture-fetchers, all must die!"

Its huge palm clenched into a fist, like a massive boulder plummeting from the sky, smashing toward Tang Luo.

"Scripture-fetchers really do come with built-in aggro?" Tang Luo raised a hand, blocking the White Giant Beast's fist; the ground beneath his feet instantly caved in a large area.

His arm drew back slightly, then pushed upward, power surging out.

The White Giant Ape's forelimb was violently "forced up," perpendicular to the sky, and a sound of cracking bones rang out.

"Roar!" The White Giant Ape's ferocity erupted; its other arm swept horizontally, intending to grab Tang Luo in its hand.

A point of cold light.

The Demon-Breaking Cold Ice Spear thrust out to the right, piercing the White Giant Ape's palm, forcibly halting it.

Terrifying cold erupted, directly freezing over half the arm, coating it in a thick layer of ice shell.

In the blink of an eye, both arms were completely crippled.

The White Giant Ape's fur danced wildly, its whole body leaning forward, heedlessly ramming its head at Tang Luo.

Tang Luo withdrew the Demon-Breaking Cold Ice Spear, his body stepping back, dodging the White Giant Ape's headbutt.

The entire mountain peak trembled; it hadn't hammered Tang Luo, and the White Giant Ape kicked off with both legs, crashing toward Tang Luo like a mountain peak.

Tang Luo extended his hand, deploying a parry.

A faint light screen lasted less than 0.1 seconds before shattering with a boom; the skull struck Tang Luo's palm — or rather, the spot at the skull's lower jawbone.

This White Giant Ape's head had no flesh; the fur grew directly from the bone.

In the hollow eye sockets, the red nether-light swayed like flames, looking very similar to the White Bone Ghosts encountered in the Ghost Prison.

"No need for all this killing talk, answer my question first." Tang Luo's body rose slightly, his left hand pressing down.

The ground kept cracking, caving in, forming another large pit, forcibly pressing the White Giant Ape's head underground.

The White Giant Ape's skull was also quite sturdy; this only produced dense fine cracks.

Its massive body began to struggle, slamming against the ground like a pile driver, wave after wave.

The mountain peaks trembled unceasingly, and the originally fairly calm water surface nearby churned continuously.

The human-faced monkeys around let out terrified "zhi zhi zhi" cries; trees fell, crushing many of them to death, yet they refused to leave.

After struggling for about two minutes, the white giant ape suddenly stopped: "Kill me."

"Hm?" Tang Luo glanced over and discovered that the source of its voice was not from the skull position of the subordinate.

Judging by the sound...

With a casual flip, the massive body was turned face-up by Tang Luo in one move; he planted a foot on its chest. The white giant ape, now flipped from prone to supine, still tried to rise, but Tang Luo stomped it back down.

It slammed heavily onto the ground once more.

The Demon-Breaking Ice Spear swept horizontally; its sharp tip sliced through the white giant ape's dense, tough fur, and Tang Luo saw a face growing on its chest.

The same size as an ordinary person's face, hidden in the fur, very hard to discover.

"Human, quite bold of you" — and that line "Kill me" came from this face.

As for the words "All scripture-fetchers must die," that beastly roar was not spoken by this face.

"As expected, it looks very much like Xiao Yuan and the others." Tang Luo said.

The White Bone Ghost of the Ghost Prison resembled Yu Kongyuan and the others somewhat; this face also resembled Yu Kongyuan and the others somewhat.

Like a grown-up version of Yu Kongyuan and the others.

This face had all its features complete, but its eyes had no pupils — inside was a hollow emptiness.

"Hey, can you answer my question now?" Tang Luo crouched down and asked, "Who named Flower-Fruit Mountain and Water Curtain Cave?"

"... They have existed since ancient times." After a while, the white giant ape spoke up and asked.

"Then were you a scripture-fetcher before as well?" Tang Luo asked.

The three words "scripture-fetcher" seemed like some kind of empowerment; the moment it heard them, the white giant ape that had been begging for death began to struggle and rampage again.

Tang Luo simply grabbed its tail and hurled the white giant ape straight into the sky.

When it fell back to the ground, it finally quieted down.

"Looks like those three words are a taboo. Never mind, do you truly seek death wholeheartedly?" Tang Luo stopped pursuing the question.

Looking at this former scripture-fetcher, neither human nor ghost in appearance, being alive is probably a kind of suffering too.

"Kill me." He spoke.

"Very well, this poor monk shall grant you release." Tang Luo extended a hand and pressed lightly; a flash of fire light flickered, spreading outward.

In an instant, it turned the white giant ape into a pile of ashes.

The surrounding human-faced monkeys, which had refused to leave all along, instantly went mad, charging at Tang Luo with reckless abandon.

There was no intention of holding back; the Demon-Breaking Ice Spear swept horizontally, cold light biting.

A moment later, only frozen corpses littered the ground; at a glance, they looked like ice sculptures one by one.

Stowing the Demon-Breaking Ice Spear, Tang Luo headed down the mountain with Xiaotian Dog.

Before long, they arrived at the originally ruined desolate village.

Seeing Tang Luo return, Ao Yulie immediately went up to meet him.

"Existing since ancient times; most likely left by Wu Jing." Tang Luo said, then looked toward Yu Kongyuan and Tianhe Jin.

The two knew Tang Luo had something to say and walked over as well.

"The White Bone Ghost encountered in the Ghost Prison should have been a former scripture-fetcher; there is a white giant ape on the mountain peak, also a former scripture-fetcher." Tang Luo said, "The fate of scripture-fetchers isn't good; prepare yourselves mentally. The Western Pure Land will likely be very dangerous."

"I know." Yu Kongyuan nodded; even if a mountain of knives and a sea of flames, she absolutely would not retreat.

The fear of death, before the instinct to fetch scriptures, is not worth mentioning.

Tianhe Jin both cried and laughed: "I knew there had to be a problem; we're not some saviors at all! Hahaha, I'm going to fetch scriptures, I must go fetch scriptures! This is heavenly mandate!" He appeared deranged.

"Good." Tang Luo said, "Then rest for a night; tomorrow we continue on the road."

Having vented fully, Tianhe Jin slumped on the ground, utterly exhausted.

Yu Kongyuan remained incomparably calm: "Even if it is heavenly mandate, I still want to go see the truth of it."

Ao Yulie was stunned; this appearance, in a trance, let him see his master from back then.

Beneath the calm lay the resolve of "not returning until Loulan is broken."

Of course, in Tang Luo's words, it would be "I want this sky to..."

Back then Ao Yulie admired him immensely; his master, though completely ignorant of Buddhist doctrine, produced golden sayings in rapid succession, no less than an enlightened high monk.

Only after coming to the real world did he learn where these "golden sayings" came from.

"Maybe it'll turn out to be a good thing in the end." Ao Yulie offered a word of comfort.

For instance, everyone's journey west ultimately didn't produce any situation like smashing cups as a signal for a grand, earth-shattering decisive battle.

Heaven and earth underwent a cataclysm, the Mountains and Seas Realm shattered, and it had nothing to do with the journey west either.

But this is just a comfort, after all.

Judging from the current situation, this world's "Journey to the West to Fetch Scriptures" is most likely truly a deep pit.